Here are all the days:
day 1: travel
day 2: Turin
day 3: Turin
day 4: El Refugio
day 5: El Refugio
day 6: Ciudad Real
day 7: Ciudad Real
day 8: Turin
***
And for those of you who don’t necessarily want to read every word I blogged about the trip, just know that God showed His love this week. It was amazing.
Now for some of my favorite photos (I’ve already posted most of them, but here they are again… just because I like them so much! ;))
(the LAST day)
Day 8: pancakes and French toast for breakfast; chicken/noodles/ potato soup for lunch; burger king and ice cream for supper. :)
We were back at the Turin school of Juan de Dios today… nearly everyone was either feeling sickly or in a horrible mood – myself included. But the kids seemed to love the VBS still – we did the day 2 skits again for the entire school… about 300 or so kids. Our craft was bookmarks that the nighttime VBS had not used up.
There wasn’t much time in Turin, so we just did the day two skits and the crafts…
When we split off into 5 groups, I got put with the older boys… not as enjoyable as the younger children – the older they are, the more they act like teenage boys: slightly more rude and fiesty. :P
We rushed to eat lunch at the Turin church and then to the hotel to pack and get as clean as possible before the last leg of the trip. Said goodbye to more of the El Salvadorians before packing onto the bus and heading to the mall to kill time before our flight.
Mom, Dad, and I after having several adventures in Burger King, went and watched the new Spiderman movie… in entire Spanish. No English subtitles or anything. It was amazing.
Were seen off at the San Salvador airport by Warner and his family – so sweet and so sad!
Had a smooth flight to Florida, despite an hour delay and screaming children, we rushed through customs (literally ran) and made it to our plane after the last boarding call. Luckily, they held the plane off for 15 minutes so we could all load up. Since there was about 60 of us from the last plane flying to Atlanta, it would’ve been a problem to have so many people missing their flight.
Slept and talked and sang the rest of the way home.
Overall? Amazing trip.
**
moo.
Day 7: pancakes and watermelon for breakfast; chicken, rice, and beans for lunch; meat, rice, carrot pieces, and pasta for supper.
As it was Sunday, we all met at the church in Ciudad Real and took communion with the church there. Mr. Stuart led the singing, Tim Moore did the first prayer, Jeremy did the “devotional”, Mr. Nance read the scriptures in English, and Jon Hard said the closing prayer… in addition to many of the native people echoing all of the above in Spanish.
Many pictures were taken with all of the people from the church… there was a kind of sadness in the air knowing that it was going to be our last day in Ciudad Real. I think it is sadder to leave here than any of the other places because of the relationships we developed from last year. Gosh, I love these people. Celina gave me a hair clip with roses in it, and I braided them into my hair… she kept smelling my braid throughout the day – so cute! :)
Today we were supposed to be going back to the same places as yesterday, so we had rehearsed a day two VBS set of skits and a craft of seeds in cups of dirt. Well, turns out that in the morning we went to the same place as yesterday morning, but in the afternoon we went to a completely different location (but one of the locations of last year).
In the morning VBS, in the field next door, an adult recreational soccer game (with jerseys and all) was going on. One of the girls in my group (Kathy) pointed to the game and said that her dad was number 5 on the blue team… so cool! :)
Another cool thing, the school children had a jump-rope team and so they did a jump-rope demonstration for us. They were pretty talented kids! :)
The second VBS was near a pupusaria and had lots of adult men bystanders surrounding the entire park. That was rather intimidating at time, but we had a lot of adult men from our team so we had no problems there.
Met a little boy named Salvador in my group… the only Salvador I met the whole time. Quite a unique name there. :P
Some of the kids KEPT coming up to our table afterwards and asked for our bottles of water to drink. One kid asked FIVE times! Maybe they don’t get bottles of water very often? I don’t know…
I sat with Celina and Adriana in the bus on the way back to the church. We traded questions about our families, our favorite colors, food, and hobbies… Such an awesome time. I love those two girls.
At the church in Ciudad Real, there was a group of young boys who hung around and tried to talk to us in English (but they were not very good at it. ;)) There was Carlos (who kept coming up to me and saying in English “I love you forever”), Christofer (who read the note during the night meeting) , Jimmy, and one other boy – they were so funny. Dad and I played hand games with them (rock, paper, scissors, and games as such). Then Fernanda taught me how to play “pikachu” – the more fun version of rock, paper, scissors. ;)
During the gospel meeting there was a torrential downpour of rain. The tin roof magnified the sound and it was awesome.
The church members had a presentation for us during the gospel meeting. All of the kids came out and gave every one of our team members placemats that the women of the church had sewn for us. They were beautiful.
Joselyn’s mother gave me a purple friendship bracelet and I gave Celina and Adriana bracelets as well.
The goodbyes tonight were heart-breaking. I hated saying goodbye to everyone… many many tears were shed.
I love the people here.
**
daddy, Mr. Hasty, and some of the construction crew
Mireya, Mom, Celina, Glorhy, and myself
the jump-rope demonstration that the school-kids gave us in the morning
Rebecca, Amy, Fernanda, Me, and Gabriella
Carlos, our bus driver :)
playing hand games with the kiddos…
cool Fernanda ;)
